“Samuel sat in silence with the navigator, a Jew named Lazarus, and that was how he learned to follow the stars. I thought he might never speak again, but he did, almost two years later, soon after his thirteenth birthday. He had become a man while we were searching for a place where we might be safe. We went to Brazil, but the Inquisition had followed the Portuguese to the new land they had claimed. At last we made our way to Curaçao, where people such as ourselves were allowed to live. We were in shallow seas when Samuel jumped off the bow. He yelled out ‘Look, Papa!’ I didn’t even recognize his voice because it had changed. He was a man with a man’s voice, but he still had a boy’s joy, for on this day he recognized the beauty of the world. There he was, riding on a dolphin’s back. I could hear him laughing. It was the day I had hoped for. I knew that as long as he kept talking he would be all right. That is why I’m telling you this, Maria. Don’t let him be silent.”

The old man had taken her hand in his. He still wore his wedding ring, for Jews had given such tokens to one another since the tenth century as a declaration of love and faith. His was decorated with Hebrew symbols for luck, fashioned out of gold filigree and blue enamel. It was his greatest treasure. He had worn it for so long he could barely move it past his swollen knuckle; now when he did there was a deep indentation around his finger, the mark of his married life. He asked Maria to give the ring to Samuel, then told her that after his death he wished to be wrapped in white cloth and placed into the ground without a coffin so that he might become one with the earth. He was accustomed to living on land. He had come to love New York, and the sea was only a memory. You never know what you want or need until you are old, for old age is a mystery that is impossible to unwind until you step into its maze. Thorn, blood, earth, love—that was the riddle that Abraham Dias held in his hand.

Maria wept as he was dying. Her tears burned her and left red marks on her face, and Abraham asked her not to cry. Instead he asked for something else, a last wish that could not be denied, one he had been thinking about every minute of every day during his last months. He wished for her to take care of his son.

“Of course,” Maria assured him.

“I mean in every way,” the old man urged. “The way a man needs to be cared for. With all your heart.”